Federal court dismisses CT lawyer’s attempt to collect damages from judge who disbarred her
A federal court has dismissed a suit a lawyer brought against the state judge who disbarred her for trying to inject inflammatory conspiracy theories about control of the judiciary into a contested divorce settlement.
The ruling, against Nickola Cunha, is another blow against a segment of disgruntled litigants who continue to claim, without substantiation, that the state’s family court system is somehow controlled by a cabal of judges, lawyers and consultants who enrich themselves by steering business.
Last year, state authorities charged Paul Boyne, a former family court litigant who now lives in Virginia, with six counts of stalking, attributing to him years of racist and antisemitic internet screeds that several judges said caused them to fear for their lives. Boyne has been held without bail since October and is scheduled to appear in court in three weeks.
U.S. District Judge Victor Bolden, in a decision released Tuesday, dismissed Cunha’s suit against now retired Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher. Cunha was demanding financial compensation from Moukawsher after he summarily disbarred her two years ago.
Cunha did not immediately respond to a request to discuss the decision.
The events leading to the disbarment began when Cunha accused another judge presiding over an especially bitter child custody dispute of involvement in a Jewish conspiracy to steer lucrative consulting work in divorce cases to friends and associates. Cunha also accused her client’s husband of child abuse and accused the judge of protecting pedophiles when he declined to act on her accusation.
Moukawsher took charge of the case and insisted that Cunha substantiate the allegations. She claimed initially to have a list documenting such behavior, but eventually admitted there was no list. Moukawsher took her law license, accusing her of making spurious claims in a self-serving effort to tie the judicial process in knots.
“She has systematically tried to use the justice system against itself in a bid to frustrate it. In a bid to discredit it,” Moukawsher wrote in his disbarment order. “In a bid that, if unchecked here and elsewhere, threatens to destroy it as a credible instrument of democracy. Indeed, Ms. Cunha and her client have lashed the system as broken and corrupt. But the case’s tortured history may be better explained by the system indulging Ms. Cunha and her client too much. In a quest to achieve fairness and give the benefit of every doubt, the system has allowed itself to be tied in knots.”
In her suit against Moukawsher, Cunha claimed that she was being punished “for cause of speech made in zealous advocacy for her client, being a violation of First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment protections, while chilling expression and advocacy, a societal detriment; implicating Connecticut State government for inability to properly select, train, manage justices, to assure the proper quality and administration of justice, misuse of federal funds notwithstanding.”
Bolden said Moukawsher had immunity as a judge from such suits and that the federal courts lacked jurisdiction over such matters. He also said the appropriate place to challenge the disbarment is in the state appellate court, where Cunha also is pressing an appeal.
Claims of judicial corruption involving race and religion and amplified by the internet have caused judges to be concerned for their safety and the safety of their families. The blog which state authorities have said is controlled by Boyne has published home addresses of judges, identified cars they drive and published photographs of their spouses. It often mentions a need to nurture liberty with the blood of tyrants and suggests gun violence, with the words “.50 caliber.”
In 2015, Edward Taupier of Cromwell was convicted and imprisoned for threatening to shoot a judge involved in his and Boyne’s divorces. An email written by Taupier contained information about the judge’s home, the distance from her bedroom to a nearby cemetery and ammunition that could be used to shoot her, according to testimony at his trial.
According to a federal search warrant affidavit, a 2016 Twitter posting linked to Boyne’s home internet address asked readers whether the judge singled out by Taupier was “in your life?” and answered the question with “keep calm and reload. aim. shoot again.”
A judge who has been a target of allegations by both Cunha and Boyne referred to the blog in a decision, saying it is”filled with anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist rants of the worst kind. It is based on the belief that the entire family law bench and bar in Connecticut and other states are being controlled by a mysterious Jewish cabal in order to steal children away from loving parents and give them to rapists and pedophiles.”